"If there is evidence, we would investigate it very seriously," Kofi Annan insisted last month when presented with allegations that U.N. officials knew about and may have benefited from Saddam Hussein's corruption of the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food Program. Fortunately, Saddam appears to have been a stickler for record-keeping.

***A letter has come to The Wall Street Journal supporting allegations that among those favored by Saddam with gifts of oil was Benon Sevan, director of the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food Program. As detailed on this page on Feb. 9, Mr. Sevan's name appears on a list of individuals, companies and organizations that allegedly received oil allocations or vouchers from Saddam that could then be sold via middlemen for a significant markup. ***

____________________________________________________

No! No! We must all look at evil Haliburton and make a Bush/Cheney connection.

The liberation of Iraq has liberated a lot of dirt on those who benefited from Saddam's brutal regime.

***AMEP still exists on registry documents in Monaco, but Mr. Abdelnour confirmed that the office there on Boulevard Princesse Charlotte closed two years ago. Intriguingly, the same building in Monaco houses another oil company, Toro Energy SAM, whose owner and a key business partner both figure prominently on the Al Mada list: oil industry specialist Cabecadas Rui de Sousa and Frenchman Patrick Maugein. (Mr. Abdelnour says he does not know either man). Mr. Maugein, a billionaire with close ties to Jacques Chirac, is a longtime associate of the trader and former fugitive Marc Rich, who fled to Europe in 1983 to avoid answering charges of racketeering, illegal trading and dodging a tax-bill of $48 million. (Mr. Rich was pardoned by Bill Clinton in his final hours in the White House). Mr. Maugein was also a close contact of Tariq Aziz, with whom he met regularly. He is the non-executive chairman of Soco International PLC, a publicly listed London-based petroleum exploration/production company, which goes into markets the majors tend to skip--Mongolia, Vietnam, North Korea, Libya and Yemen.***

***One prominent former employee of Cotecna is Kojo Annan, Kofi Annan's son by his first marriage. The young Mr. Annan was employed by Cotecna in the mid-1990s. He reportedly continued a consultancy relationship with Cotecna through his Nigerian-based company.

Philip Henebry, Cotecna's CFO, confirmed that Kojo Annan had been employed there, but would not confirm any dates. Asked how Cotecna was able to underbid competitors on the Iraq contract by as much as half, he replied that "We felt that the margins with competitors were very, very high. Originally the contract was for short periods and we worked on the assumption it would be renewed." ***

"AMEP still exists on registry documents in Monaco, but Mr. Abdelnour confirmed that the office there on Boulevard Princesse Charlotte closed two years ago. Intriguingly, the same building in Monaco houses another oil company, Toro Energy SAM, whose owner and a key business partner both figure prominently on the Al Mada list: oil industry specialist Cabecadas Rui de Sousa and Frenchman Patrick Maugein. (Mr. Abdelnour says he does not know either man).

Mr. Maugein, a billionaire with close ties to Jacques Chirac, is a longtime associate of the trader and former fugitive Marc Rich, who fled to Europe in 1983 to avoid answering charges of racketeering, illegal trading and dodging a tax-bill of $48 million.

(Mr. Rich was pardoned by Bill Clinton in his final hours in the White House).

Mr. Maugein was also a close contact of Tariq Aziz, with whom he met regularly. He is the non-executive chairman of Soco International PLC, a publicly listed London-based petroleum exploration/production company, which goes into markets the majors tend to skip--Mongolia, Vietnam, North Korea, Libya and Yemen."

Now, isn't there some connection between mrs. kerry's organization TIDES, with Marc Rich, his ex-wife and GEORGE $OROS???

Enquiring minds want to KNOW!! I smell a demoRAT!! Or two or three or a DOZEN.

Tick, tick, tick, tick. The lights are coming on and the RATS are scurrying. Now where is that International Court when they could MAYBE actually help and put Kofi, Jacques, Clinton, etal, on the stand!

Mr. Abdelnour confirms the many reports now in the public domain that SOMO demanded that surcharges on Iraqi oil be paid into Iraqi accounts. "I paid once," he acknowledges. "I was given an account in Jordan and the name of the lady who was in charge of this account." He says the surcharge amounted to 25 cents a barrel. Was it possible that all this happened unbeknownst to the U.N.? "Impossible," he says. "Everybody knew it. The U.N. knew about it. They [SOMO] contacted you over the phone. . . .The call was over a satellite phone, which was tapped, and the head of SOMO talked to me very openly, not through a disguised language."

(Mr. Abdelnour says he does not know either man). Mr. Maugein, a billionaire with close ties to Jacques Chirac, is a longtime associate of the trader and former fugitive Marc Rich, who fled to Europe in 1983 to avoid answering charges of racketeering, illegal trading and dodging a tax-bill of $48 million. (Mr. Rich was pardoned by Bill Clinton in his final hours in the White House). Mr. Maugein was also a close contact of Tariq Aziz, with whom he met regularly.

17
posted on 03/11/2004 4:36:34 AM PST
by BigWaveBetty
(9 out of 10 dictators prefer John Effin Kerry for president.)

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